The VLC - Adelaide

Bosom Buddies

"He was definitely not planning on asking me out." My bag felt heavy behind me as I plopped in my seat at the bell.

"What are you talking about?" Liz asked.

"Well, I was waiting outside for Ashleigh this morning, she never showed up by the way, where is she?"

"She got a cold from Friday night. Her mom practically locked her in her room. She had to sneak out to call me. Her mom is a germaphobe and she won't let Ashleigh leave the house if she even sneezes once. Talk about pressure during allergy season!" Marley laughed.

I couldn't join in their lightheartedness. For some reason seeing Gavin kiss...well, it really affected me.

"So what is this about someone "not" asking you out?" Marley pressed.

"Shhh... Mr. Johnson is looking at us." Liz hissed.

At least I still had Mr. J...Derek... "ahhhh." I sighed. Ashleigh had done a little research online and found out his first name. If only I had the nerve to ask him his middle name.

"Speaking of Ashleigh. She just sent me a text message asking me to describe what Mr. Johnson looks like today in detail to help her recover from her cold." Marley held her phone under the desk.

"Tell her she was wrong about Gavin." I commented.

"She wants to know what she was wrong about and says that Liz should ask Derek to tell the story of his adventures in Australia again, but this time ask for details about clothing. She is sure he took his shirt off in the heat of the outback and she needs some cheering up."

"Tell her Gavin has a girlfriend and Mr. Johnson is mine as a consolation prize."

"What!" Liz and Marley both looked at me. Marley frantically texted while I began to elaborate.

"I saw him this morning with Mackenzie!"

"Mackenzie Lee?"

"Yes! She had her tongue down his throat!" Mackenzie was a bubbly, curvaceous girl. You could almost feel the "giggle" just by looking at her and she knew how to use her body to her advantage.

"Mackenzie Lee can't be trusted. She will snatch a man right up before you even knew you wanted him." Liz said.

"Ashleigh demands that we bring noodles and visit her in prison so she can get the important details of what you saw this morning. She says that things aren't always what they appear to be."

"How could I misconstrue a tongue in the throat? What else could that mean? Was she checking for laryngitis?"

"Mackenzie Lee has a one track brain when it comes to guys. I think Addy is right on this one." Liz reasoned.

"Well, regardless, as her bosom buddies I think we should save Ashleigh from the depths of despair."

"My mom loved Anne of Green Gables when she was our age."

I was glad to change the subject, but I was still thinking of Mackenzie. It didn't take me very long to figure out which girls were popular, which girls were easy, and which girls were normal. My group fell in the latter category. Mackenzie, well...she didn't belong with us or with the popular girls. At least this gave me the motivation to move on. If Gavin liked that kind of girl we would not make a good match. Thankfully, in foods, we were taking notes all morning for our next assignment (pretzels), so I didn't have to talk to him. When the bell rang I had run out of there as fast as I could anxious to tell the girls what I saw. In the end they did little to console me. They told me I should forget about him. No guy that would kiss Mackenzie Lee was worth my time.

After school Mateo drove the three of us to the store to buy supplies for Ashleigh. Marley felt that candy would make her feel better, I went for the soup, and Lizzy managed to find an old Hitchcock movie on one of the end caps.

Ashleigh answered the door in her pjs and Kermit slippers. Her mom was out on a "business" dinner. "How much time do we have?" Marley asked.

"Probably all night, but for safety, let's say four hours."

Marley ran out to tell Mateo what time to pick us up. My parent's were excited that I made such close friends so quickly and they had given me more freedom than usual. When I lived in Washington I couldn't go out on school nights.

After filling our bellies with soup and Swedish Fish we crashed on the couch to watch Rear Window. Liz was just about to push play when Ashleigh stopped her. "I almost forgot to ask you about Gavin!" She looked at me. "It must be all the meds. They're foggin up my brain."

"It wasn't a big deal. Nothing to talk about."

"Wasn't a big deal? You said you saw him with Mackenzie Lee. I am sure there is a logical explanation for it and if not, who can blame a guy for acting on his sexual impulses?"

"Ashleigh!" The three of us said in unison.

"What? It is true. Boys think about it every three seconds. If a hot girl walks up to a boy and sticks her tongue down his throat he is not going to push her away. It goes against nature. I went to school with Mackenzie, she is always doing outrageous things to get attention. She probably caught him off guard and the minute you walked away he slapped her."

"Only Addy slaps people for kissing her." Marley joked.

"Funny. I know what I saw. You will just have to come back to school tomorrow to protect me from him. I can't be alone with him. I am too humiliated." I covered my face with my hands. "You know, he was gone all last week. I bet he was skipping school with Mackenzie. They have probably been dating this whole time! I keep losing focus. I already like someone back in Washington. I don't know why I keep thinking about Gavin."

"Because he is so hot!" Ashleigh suggested.

"Yeah, sure. The worst part of it is that we have been assigned as permanent partners! Mrs. Anderson decided she liked her plan of "mixing it up" so well that we are just going to have to get used to the person she placed us with."

"That is great!" Marley said. "You will have a chance to find out why he was kissing Mackenzie."

"Can we just watch the movie? I want something to take my mind off of this."

Fortunately, Rear Window was just scary enough that I only thought about Gavin when Jimmy Stuart and Grace Kelly kissed.

Also fortunately, the next morning, Gavin wasn't outside the classroom kissing Mackenzie. Thank goodness. It was still hard to see him though, even without a girl down his throat.

"Addy." He was directly addressing me, looking right at me, saying my name.

"Yes?" It was all I could get out.

"Why are girls so crazy?"

"Umm... I don't know."

"For example, why would a girl kiss a guy just to make her boyfriend jealous when the boyfriend isn't around, and happens to be the guy's best friend?"

Mackenzie was trying to make her boyfriend jealous. Fantastic! Gavin didn't have a girlfriend. "I don't know." Isn't that what I just said? He must think that I have the most limited vocabulary. A part of me wondered, hoped, that he thought I may have seen him and that is why he was bothering to tell me about the whole thing. Another part of myself said I was stupid.

"I guess it is impossible to understand women. Do you understand recipes?" I nodded. "Good because we have to make pretzels and I still don't understand the difference between measuring liquids and solids."

"You just have to use the liquid measuring cup for liquids and the dry measuring cups for dry ingredients. It is pretty simple." I grabbed the Pyrex out of the cupboard and the measuring cups out of the drawer.

"What would I do without you?"

My throat caught and I had to swallow hard. "I guess your pretzel dough would either be too sticky or too floury."

He laughed and walked away to the ingredient table to grab our tray.